Depardieu, Adjani to star in France's Strauss-Kahn movie

Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn (C) and Francois Pupponi (2ndR), Deputy Mayor of Sarcelles arrive at a polling station in the second round of the 2012 French presidential elections in Sarcelles May 6,Voting started in mainland France on Sunday in the runoff presidential elections.

Credit: Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes

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PARIS (Reuters) - The disgraced power couple of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair will be played by two of France's best-known actors, Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Adjani, in an upcoming movie about sex, politics and love on the rocks.

Rape charges in New York, later dropped, against Strauss-Kahn in May 2011 shocked the world and shattered the reputation of the former International Monetary Fund head, costing him his job and his marriage to Sinclair, a popular TV journalist.

"It should be fascinating because we have a director who isn't French in charge and he's going to go where it hurts," Adjani said in a recent interview with the weekly Journal de Dimanche, speaking of U.S. director Abel Ferrara.

"With him, there's no risk of being politically correct," she added.

On Friday, Sinclair told Le Parisien daily she had not been contacted about the film inspired by the scandal, but that she respected the choice of Adjani, best known to international audiences for the lead role in the 1988 film "Camille Claudel."

"I like that woman a lot," Sinclair told the paper, adding that she wouldn't meet with her, however, "were it to talk about that specific subject."

Sinclair - who separated from Strauss-Kahn earlier this year and is thriving in a new job as a news editor of the Huffington Post's French edition - responded, "I'm doing very well, thank you," when asked how her life has been since the split.

Strauss Kahn, however, is said by people who know him to be dejected and frustrated following his fall from grace. He has kept a low profile in the past year but is currently the target of a French judicial investigation to determine whether he knew sex parties he attended were organized by pimps and frequented by prostitutes.

The film, due to start shooting soon and inspired by the famous couple's relationship, will go behind the "closed doors of a couple in torment," Adjani said.

"Even if we don't have the same names as the characters in question, who is fooled?" she added.

Depardieu said in March he found Strauss-Kahn "arrogant" and "self-satisfied," but because of that he would be an interesting character to play.

"Because I don't like him I'm going to do it," he told Swiss broadcaster RTS.